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Origin and history

Dr Gagnon's apartment, also known as Stendhal House, is a 16th and 18th century estate located at 20 Grande Rue in Grenoble. Composed of two adjoining bourgeois houses, it belonged to Stendhal's maternal grandfather, Dr Henri Gagnon (1728–13), who raised the writer there after the death of his mother in 1790. This place, where Stendhal lived from 1790 to 1796, became a "observing laboratory" of good society in Grenoble, inspiring his future work. The apartment, witness of the Day of Tiles (7 June 1788), was sold in 1830 after the death of Romain Gagnon, the doctor's son.

The ensemble was acquired by the city of Grenoble in 1962 and transformed into a museum in 1978, before becoming part of the Stendhal Museum in 2007. The latter consists of three sites: the Gagnon apartment, Stendhal's home (14 rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau) and the Stendhal collection of the Municipal Library, rich in 40,000 manuscripts. The apartment, registered to historical monuments in 2000 and labeled Maisons des Illustres in 2011, restores original volumes while adding contemporary elements to evoke Stendhal's era.

The apartment consists of a living room in Italian (reception room adorned with chandeliers and hache furniture), a natural history cabinet (with minerals, birds and a naturalized crocodile), a work office (library and bust of Voltaire) and a guest room dedicated to Romain Gagnon, libertin uncle of Stendhal. The terrace, built on a Roman wall of the third century, served as an astronomical observatory for Dr. Gagnon, who initiated his grandson to the stars.

The museum offers temporary exhibitions, such as Stendhal, a red and black Republican (2015), and multimedia kiosks to view digitized manuscripts. Architects Cédric Avenier and Pierre-Antoine Rappa redesigned the spaces in 2012, combining historical restoration and modern scenography. The apartment thus illustrates both Stendhal's family privacy and the intellectual influence of Grenoble in the 18th century.

The Stendhal library collection, initiated in 1861 by a gift from the widow of Louis Crozet (friend of the writer), has 10,000 books and 700 museum pieces (paintings, busts, lithographs). The home apartment, renovated in 2002, hosts literary events and educational workshops. These three places are connected by a literary itinerary in the historical center, tracing the steps of the writer.

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